


Third Time's The Charm

by janiculum



Category: A Tale of Time City - Diana Wynne Jones
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-03
Updated: 2017-04-03
Packaged: 2018-10-14 09:13:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10533399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janiculum/pseuds/janiculum
Summary: Two times they could pretend it was nothing, and one time they couldn't.





	

The first time it happened was nearly two years after Faber John’s return, when Jonathan’s trial had just wound up with a positive result. After much weighing of the scales, all the pompous dignitaries assembled to assess his innocence agreed that, all things considered, his actions did not deserve being cast out into the boundless plains of history. 

When the result came through, Jonathan ran through the Annuate, whooping for anyone who could hear. ‘I still get to sit my Leaver’s Test! No languishing in history for me!’ The Sempitern’s face twitched slightly into a smile as Jonathan ran past, although Jenny was much more effusive. ‘Oh thank Time!’ she cried, seizing Jonathan as he neared her and grasping him into a tight hug. She pushed him back to look sternly at his face. ‘I hope you thank Faber John when you see him next. He put in quite a persuasive word for you, you know.’

Jonathan shoved his pigtail into his mouth and glanced away somewhere behind his mother’s elbow for a moment. He then pulled out his hair from between his teeth and muttered ‘yes, of course! Though it was half his fault there was a trial in the first place, wasn’t it?’

Jenny rolled her eyes. ‘Just make sure he knows how grateful you are. You still have to pass the Leaver’s Test when that time comes, and he’s kept both you and Vivian on as students. He’s done a lot of things that he didn’t have to do, you know.’ 

‘Yes, yes, ok,’ huffed Jonathan, and shifted past his mother to run towards the door. ‘Vivian’s waiting in Aeon Square! We’re going to get butter-pies to celebrate. Or commiserate - but she hasn’t heard the good news yet.’ He raced through the doors of the Annuate and through the cobbled square of Time Close. He stopped, half breathless, when he reached Aeon Square. Much of it was still under construction, with new buildings being assembled based on Faber John’s suggestions. He saw Vivian sitting underneath an awning outside one of the newer replacement buildings, shining glass in the sunlight. 

‘V.S.!’ he half-yelled, hoping to attract her attention across the throng of tourists and the coos of the recently introduced flocks of Thirty Century pigeons. Vivian did not look up. He jogged closer to her until he was barely a metre away. ‘Vivian!’

Vivian stood up hurriedly in a shock, concern writ large across her face. ‘Jonathan! I haven’t heard from anyone yet. What’s the result?’ 

Jonathan broke out into an easy smile, his eyes creasing behind his sight function. ‘Cleared of everything!’ he crowed. Vivian broke out into a matching smile of relief, her hand across her mouth. ‘Oh, thank god -’ she breathed into the palm of her hand. She uncovered her mouth and scowled slightly. ‘Jonathan, it’s been over an hour, why on earth didn’t you just send me a message as soon as you knew?’

‘Because I wanted to see your face when you heard - ’ he said simply, faltering as Vivian began to look very unimpressed. He hesitated. ‘I - I’m sorry – I just wanted to be the one to tell you...’, he petered off weakly. Vivian leaned over and thwacked him on the arm. ‘You idiot! I’ve been sitting here this whole time worrying myself sick over you!’

Jonathan rubbed his arm and moved closer. Vivian had the look of someone who was half about to cry, and half overjoyed at very good news. ‘Oh – alright, fine – you’re an idiot,’ she cried, ‘but I’m so glad that everything’s going to be ok.’ Jonathan cracked a lordly grin and, without thinking, grabbed her into a hug. Vivian was stiff for a moment, then leaned into him, her heart beating quickly against his chest. She sniffed into his shoulder. ‘Idiot.’ she whispered. 

‘But now I won’t be cast out into history!’ Jonathan yelled over the top of her head, disturbing a group of nearby pigeons eyeing the remains of a tourist’s butter-pie. Vivian chuckled into his shoulder and he whooped again, sending the pigeons into flight. He pulled back and grabbed Vivian’s face into his hands and, without thinking, leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. ‘I’m free!’

Vivian blushed and looked down and Jonathan abruptly let go of her, trailing his hand down to her shoulder, where he awkwardly patted it. His lordly demeanour was immediately replaced by a more nervous one. He steadfastly ignored the warm redness creeping up the back of his neck. Vivian took a slight step backwards and looked up at him, while she also attempted to focus on anything other than the warmness of her face. Jonathan cleared his throat. ‘Butter-pie?’ he motioned towards the table. Vivian smiled. ‘Yes. Butter-pie.’

 

\-----------------------------------------------------------

 

The second time it happened was shortly after Jonathan had decided, in all his airs and graces, to teach Vivian to properly swim. It was a warm day and Sam was stuck inside with Mr. Enkian, busy relearning all of history, now that it was beginning to settle back down into new Fixed and Unstable Eras. Vivian and Jonathan should have been stuck in with Dr. Wilander, but as Faber John, he had different business to attend to that afternoon and he had most uncharacteristically given them the time off instead of demanding they study in silence in the library. 

They rushed down to the River Time after lunch, and hired a boat to take them down to the Lagoon. They drifted slowly, and Vivian gazed up at the time locks that had a moderate but steady stream of tourists coming through. More children, now, as well. The frantic time ghosts from the final days of the last patch of Time City were no longer there, but Vivian looked away eventually in any case. The memory of the terrified crowds still unnerved her slightly.

Jonathan rolled over to look at her, boat rocking slightly, sunlight dappling across his face. ‘I still can’t believe we haven’t gone swimming for so long,’ he said, ‘but at least we don’t have to pretend that you can anymore.’ Vivian laughed. ‘I still can’t believe that we managed to fool your mother enough in the first place!’ 

The boat bumped against the mooring in the Lagoon and they jumped off and onto the bank, finding a shaded place under the flowering trees to deposit their supplies. They pulled out their bathing suits. Vivian stepped into hers and it sealed itself up down her back, while Jonathan fossicked about looking for seaweed chews in their bags. ‘Come on, then,’ she said. ‘You can eat after we swim!’ Jonathan looked up and saw her standing with her hands on her hips and on the tips of her toes near the water’s edge. ‘Come on!’ she urged again. Forgetting the seaweed chews, he grabbed his bathing suit and raced after her, wrestling it over his legs and nearly falling over as he ran. Vivian laughed but then her look turned to horror as he ran up to her and tackled her into the water. She spluttered and drank more lake water than she thought she could fit in her.

‘You – you!’

‘The best way to learn is by doing.’, Jonathan said loftily as he paddled water. Vivian gripped desperately at the surface of the water, barely keeping her head free of the rippled pane of the lake. She swore, in new words that she had picked up from some of the students from Fifty-Three Century. A look of mock shock came across Jonathan’s face. ‘Well, how could I possibly teach someone who is so rude?’ Vivian glared and sputtered. 

They spent several hours at the lake, Vivian slowly developing the skills to tread water and eventually crawl a few metres under her own steam. She beamed the first time she made it to the bush farther down the bank from where Jonathan was lying lazily on his back in the water. ‘I did it!’ she called out, Jonathan barely registering. He lifted a hand out of the water and waved with a muffled ‘Congratulations!’ He continued to gaze up at the blue sky, Vivian’s nearby splashing fading into the background.

By then, Vivian had begun to feel quite confident in her basic swimming abilities. She could certainly stay afloat. She stealthily paddled over to where Jonathan was floating, clinging to the bank to introduce as few ripples as possible. She neared him and then braced herself against the solid earth underneath the water, waiting for the moment until Jonathan’s head drifted around to her direction.

She waited for the optimum position, and then she sprung across the surface of the water, grabbing Jonathan’s forehad and his pigtail and pulling him underwater, thoroughly dunking him. Jonathan’s arms pinwheeled this way and that, grabbing only at empty water. Vivian laughed and gurgled slightly as she was pulled partly under. Jonathan twisted underneath and scrabbled at her bathing suit, frantically wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her down into the water. Vivian screamed. Jonathan pulled himself tighter around her and then pulled them up together into the sunlight, spluttering and half-choking. 

Vivian found herself unexpectedly close to Jonathan’s face, water dripping down her face and almost painfully into her eyes and out of her nose. She blinked several times and moved her arms, fruitlessly trying to wipe the water out of her face. Jonathan gazed steadily down at her, his grip still firm around her waist. 

‘I’ll get you for that.’ he said, his breath tickling her forehead. She felt the slight movements of his body as he treaded water. Vivian rolled her eyes, but she was uncomfortably aware of their closeness. 

‘Oh?’ she said half-jeeringly. ‘How?’

Jonathan’s head bent down and he whispered ‘Well, you see...’ and ever so slowly, Vivian’s face made of panicked stone, he leant down and pressed his lips to hers. Then, he abruptly pulled away and without warning, whipped his hands from around her waist and dunked her in the lake quite ferociously.

‘….like this!’

 

\-----------------------------------------------------------

 

The third time was during an argument in Jonathan’s bedroom. 

Jonathan shut the door behind him. ‘You don’t understand what this pressure is like – they’re never going to cast you out into history, are you? You’d cause all that instability! So this is barely nothing to you, and I have to spend all this time worrying about whether I’m going to end up stuck in some beastly Mind War or -’

Vivian could have screamed. She felt the urge to stamp her feet and shriek, but instead she whirled around in a fury and fiercely, she yelled ‘WHAT? What? You think I don’t understand? You took me out of history when I was eleven, and I knew nothing about Time City or even anything beyond Twenty Century, and I had to learn everything that you learnt when you were practically a baby and – oh! I can’t believe you.’

‘I just mean -’

‘No! You just mean that you think that my test won’t be as important, because at the end of the day, it’s only Jonathan Lee Walker’s test that’s important, because, what, you’re a Lee? I would like to remind you that when I sit my test, it’ll determine what sort of career I can have from now on. It’s not just you that’s under pressure here, Jonathan! And you know you’re going to pass.’

Jonathan had the decency to look mildly subdued and at least slightly less lofty. ‘Alright – I didn’t mean that. I want you to do well. I know you need to do well. I didn’t mean it wasn’t important. I just -’ he sighed, and his tone became tinged with a certain misery. ‘I’m terrified of being forced out into history. I don’t think I could cope.’

‘Well, don’t you bloody dare say ‘at least it’s alright for you, Vivian, because you grew up in history.’’

‘No – I would never say that. You belong here now, you know that.’ Jonathan stuffed his pigtail in his mouth and looked at her nervously.

‘I know I belong here. I have no problem believing that. What I have a problem with is you and  
how you seem to think you’re just the centre of everything! I’ve spent hours listening to you fret about your Leaver’s Test instead of studying, don’t you dare tell me I don’t understand.’

Jonathan leaned against the door and gently thudded his head back against the heavy wood. He closed his eyes and sighed, pigtail slipping behind his back. ‘I know. I know. Out of everyone, I know you would be the one to understand the most. I was only thinking that – I worry that - if I fail, whether or not you do well on your test, we won’t both be here in Time City anymore.’

Vivian went quiet. ‘Do you think I don’t worry about that?’ she said.

Jonathan cracked open his eyes and looked at her with an odd expression on his face. ‘Do you?’

Vivian took a breath, trying to hold back hot tears that were beginning to prickle in the back of her eyes. She moved over to the bed and flopped down onto it. ‘I have nightmares about what would happen if you had to leave, Jonathan. Don’t think you’re the only one who’s worried about this, or you’re the only one that cares. Because I care. A lot.’ 

Jonathan went and sat next to her on the bed, gently putting his arms around her. ‘Vivian.’

Vivian looked up at him. ‘What?’

Jonathan paused for a moment, then leaned in and kissed her. His hand flew up to cradle the side of her face. Vivian, paused in shock for a moment, curled around eagerly to meet him. She tasted his lips against hers, gently opening her mouth for his tongue to sweep inside her mouth. She turned fully and grabbed fistfuls of his pyjama suit in her hands, pulling him towards her. ‘You’re an idiot.’ she muttered against his teeth between breaths. She felt his lips curve into a smile, but he didn’t stop. Instead, his arms encircled her and he pulled her over him and onto the bed.


End file.
